Adam Gould (40 page)

‘When last we met,’ Adam reminded him, ‘you advised me to disappear from her life. What do you say now?’

Latour’s response was blunt. ‘Keep well out of sight if you care for her safety.’

Adam didn’t argue.

‘She’s never alone,’ Madame Quill warned when told of Latour’s advice. Armies of aunts were said to be relaying each other so as to show solidarity, quash rumours and possibly restrain her.

‘Are they afraid of her husband or’ – Adam felt shy about asking this – ‘me?’

‘Possibly herself?’ Madame Quill shrugged. ‘We heard that they keep her semi-sedated.’

François Tassart, on dropping by to sell the last of Guy’s clothes, had reported this. As a Belgian and a servant, he sometimes got news of the d’Armaillé household which he described as uneasy. Something – possibly violent – seemed set to happen.

‘Why,’ Thady reproached Adam, ‘did you not take my advice and wait discreetly in Ireland?’

Ireland, Adam reminded him, was not discreet. It was secretive, which was different.

He was thinking of something Tobin had said at their recent lunch, after Brady removed the uneaten seaweed blancmange, and left them alone. While they lingered over coffee, the bishop’s mood had darkened. Studying the dregs in his cup, he confided that the clergy were tormented by knowing what went on in places like this: things like incest, sexual slavery and betrayal. ‘We don’t just hear of them in the confessional,’ he insisted. ‘People pick on us when they need to get them off their chest and pass the burden on – usually when it’s too late to help. Sometimes a family member is privy to a thing, or a doctor or magistrate stumbles on and helps cover it up. Because depravity must be hidden. Else people would despair. It’s why we sometimes seem tyrannical.’

‘Not you,’ Adam had soothed

‘No?’ The bishop’s smile was puzzled. ‘I was too soft. You see, as the gentry here are mostly Protestant, a man like me could be as lonely as a lighthouse-keeper. Thanks to your parents, though, I had the run of this house and a mount for the hunt when I wanted one. So when your Papa divorced us all – your mother, you and me – my loss was personal. Mind, I pitied his case – the clash of duties – and cheered on his bid to find a compromise. But none proved workable. One was to get the girl – Kate, remember? – to wait till you were older and marry you. Her dowry could then be promised, a contract drawn up and money borrowed straight away on the strength of it to save his estate. Maybe that too was unworkable? Anyway, Gary gave it up.’ Thoughtfully, Tobin poured himself the last of the coffee and said that he had come to see that Gary
wanted
both women. ‘He hoped to import some of the shine of his London life to this place where money was tight and the air tarnished by shadows. He was a hybrid, you see. Like yourself and – God help us – me!’ The bishop’s laugh was glum.

Some time later, when chatting with Thady in Paris, it occurred to Adam to ask if he too was a hybrid.

‘Divil a hybrid!’ said Thady cheerfully, ‘even if some call me “Monsieur Qui”!’ And he pointed out that in Ireland he would be seen simply as a servant, whereas here, on the rue St Lazare, he was a businessman. An entrepreneur! ‘That,’ he told Adam, ‘is why you are an exile, and I a settler. I,’ he thumped his chest, ‘have shaken the dirt of Ireland from off my feet!’

‘Thady!’ His wife called. ‘Monsieur Didier is across the street watching our door. He must know you’re here,’ she told Adam. ‘Maybe you’d as well see what he wants.’

‘Monsieur Gould.’ Teeth glistening, the ex-orderly held out a letter.

For a mad moment Adam thought it might be from Danièle. His glance slid over the extended hands, and he wondered whether they might make a lunge for him. But no. Men like this believed in ritual. Duels? Adam could have laughed. It was years since he had fired a gun and then only to kill rabbits.

‘Is Madame d’Armaillé safe?’

‘My master blames himself too much to let harm come to her.’

Adam took the letter. There was no envelope, just a sealed sheet of folded paper on which he couldn’t get a purchase. His hand shook, and he turned away to hide it.

‘It should be a challenge,’ said the orderly, ‘but, somehow, I don’t think it is. Read it, sir, and see if I’m right.’

More theatre, thought Adam resentfully. He asked, ‘Can you open this?’

Didier slid a tough, yellow fingernail under the sealing wax and levered it off. Still holding the letter, he said, ‘My guess is that he’s entrusting Madame’s happiness to you lest something happen to himself.’ Was there mockery in the small, lively eyes?

‘Is this some trick?’

‘
Mais non, Monsieur
.’ Didier returned the letter.

Adam read:

Monsieur Gould
,

You and I know enough about each other to dispense with beating about the bush
.

My wife knows nothing about the proposal I am about to make. This means that, if you so choose, you may refuse without embarrassment. Nobody will ever know
.

Glancing at the patently hawk-eyed Didier, Adam saw the absurdity of this. He read on.

The proposal is that you tell me whether, if I were to withdraw from her life, you would undertake to ensure her happiness
.

‘Well? I was right, wasn’t I?’

Looking up, Adam caught the unwavering blast of Didier’s curiosity.

‘He must have told you.’

‘No!’ Didier spoke with satisfaction. ‘But, you see, I know him. Even when he is not himself, I can tell what he will do.’ Clearly the sort of knowledge which Bishop Tobin found painful exhilarated Didier. But then, Adam reflected, Tobin had the care of a diocese full of souls and Didier had only one.

He went back to the letter.

There is a villa where people like me are looked after and the company is as congenial as it can be for men in my condition. I would let her divorce me. Then she and you could marry
.

You may fear that I have a hostile aim, but I give you my word that I have not. To be sure, if we put this offer to my wife, she may refuse from pity or pride. This is a risk. My question is: shall we take it?

Adam handed back the opened letter. ‘Had you really not seen it?’

Didier shook his head and began to read slowly, mouthing the words like a child. ‘Not a word about honour!’ he noted. ‘If he’s tricking anyone, it’s himself. What’s your answer?’ Opening his coat, he produced a writing case with pens and ink bottles and laid them on a convenient window sill. ‘Just write “I accept” at the bottom of the letter and sign. Or,’ insolently, ‘the opposite.’

Ah, thought Adam, he needs something on paper! He asked, ‘Are you contriving a plot against your mistress?’

The small eyes blinked. ‘No need, Monsieur. I saw what you and she were up to when you thought I had gone off on a fool’s errand.’

‘But you have no proof.’

‘Monsieur d’Armaillé asked for none. He knows what I saw.’

‘Then he knows too that by lingering to spy on us, you left him in such distress at his wife’s absence that he flung himself downstairs. You are to blame for his injury – and are clearly jealous of her. If she comes to harm ...’

‘Yes?’ The man’s tone was challenging.

‘The police will know who to blame.’

Adam retreated to the Quills’ flat.

‘You’re a magnet for madness. Do you think it’s because you’re so sane?’

In Thady Quill’s mouth, that word could mean ‘cowardly’ or, at best, ‘inert’.

It was now mid-July and Thady, having travelled to the seaside hotel where Adam had registered under a false name, was dispensing news. He had started with an account of Maupassant’s funeral and of the eulogy delivered by Monsieur Zola, which Tassart had described in tearful detail to the Quills. A pity, Thady thought, that the man whose life attracted such praise had not been allowed to choose when to end it.

‘“A bad passing”! Doesn’t his name mean something like that?’

Adam dismissed a fear that this was a taunt. Thady could not know that he had failed Guy and might now be failing Danièle. No! That couldn’t be true. After all, it was for her sake that he was lying low in Uncle Matthew’s old bolt-hole and refraining from either visiting or writing to her.

What, though, if the husband’s offer were sincere and Adam’s restraint misjudged?

Inert? Cowardly?

On impulse, he told Thady that he had an errand to run, then slipped out to the post office and sent a telegram. It consisted of one word and was unsigned. If d’Armaillé had been waiting for that word, he would know who sent it.

Back in the hotel, Adam marvelled that he had not done this sooner. Solitude must have softened his brain during his stay here, where his only visitor was Thady Quill. Thady brought him letters and news, which meant that on his visits the tempo of Adam’s life shifted from tedium to anxiety.

He didn’t mind tedium – welcomed it, in fact, having fled here from Paris when the ex-orderly was spotted, once too often, stalking him in the breezy dusk, coat-tails flapping like a malevolent bird. To cap that, a letter had come from Félicité saying, ‘While Monsieur is alive, Didier will do nothing daft!’ It was worrying to learn that d’Armaillé’s health was all that stood between daft dangers and Danièle.
She
did not write either, being watched too closely for letters to be smuggled out. Félicité had written hers in a post office in the nearest town. An admirer – Félicité could find one anywhere – had driven her there and back in his gig. Today again, there was a letter from her in Thady’s bag. It advised Adam to bide his time and consider the following: Monsieur d’Armaillé seemed to be waiting for something and was behaving like a man in a trance. Didier had returned. Danièle was suffering from melancholia and might be becoming addicted to morphine. She sometimes mentioned Adam but in a dreamy, inconclusive way. Perhaps the sight of her husband sitting stoically in his Bath-chair had paralysed her.

‘But you mustn’t come,’ emphasized Félicité, ‘anywhere near here. Not
yet
.’ She underlined the words so forcefully that her pen pierced the paper.

Paralysis. Hypnosis! It was like a spell! Well, for better or worse, Adam’s telegram would break it. Its single word was ‘Yes.’

‘Any move,’ Thady approved when told of this, ‘must be better than none. As it is, you’re like three sleeping beauties!’ And Thady, who had enjoyed a bottle of Saumur with his lunch, laughed with tipsy wisdom and poured himself some Calvados.

Next, fishing in his bag, he said he had letters from Ireland. ‘Tell me first,’ he paused, ‘which of your two women you really want. I think I should know.’

Adam grimaced. ‘Don’t torment me. I’m half dead with need for Danièle.’ Telling Thady that to lose her would be to lose a vital part of himself reminded him of how, when still ignorant of her husband’s plight, he had described this same feeling to her as an ‘amputation’ – then been perplexed by her anger. ‘May I?’ Picking up the glass of Calvados, he drank, then grimaced again when the alcohol blazed in his mouth. ‘The other day I stabbed my hand, just to feel something. See.’ He showed the scar.

‘What do you expect to be the result of your telegram?’

‘Who knows?’ Adam turned up his hands. ‘Perhaps a gun will go off. I don’t think Danièle will be the target. It’s more likely to be me. Or some bystander.’ With amusement, he saw Thady blench. ‘Here.’ He handed back the glass.

Thady raised it. ‘“May we be alive this time next year!” That’s a modest old toast. So now,’ he drained his glass, ‘for the Irish news. Cait.’

‘Oh God!’

Adam had managed – more or less – to put her from his mind, which was frantic with fears for Danièle. So how could he deal with Irish responsibilities? He could, perhaps, have mollified Cait by sending seaside postcards, but had feared that this must seem cavalier. Anything kinder, though, would fall into the dread category of ‘raising hopes’, a thing which, though he had never intended, he seemed repeatedly to have done. Cait was in some ways as baffling to him as a Congo native and as eager – guiltily he quashed the thought – to eat him. In their hinterland, where there were few people of her station, he must be the nearest she had come to finding her match. Unmatched, she risked becoming an outlandish figure, and children might soon be pelting her with stones.

‘How is she?’

‘She’s mounting a demonstration,’ Thady reported. ‘She has been visiting her mountainy clan and returned with a son whom she calls after your father, while hinting that he may, instead, be yours.’

‘How could she have a son?’

‘Well, I’m told she put on weight last year and was away a lot, supposedly to help nurse an aunt. It seems that he looks about fifteen months old, a big bouncing fellow like the Christ child in the Italian picture that Bishop Tobin brought back from one of his trips – too big for a nativity, as the mothers in the congregation often remarked, but perfect for Cait’s purposes. There’s a letter here from the bish himself, who is no doubt furious. I haven’t read it, but have sources of my own, as you may imagine. Brady for one.’

Adam felt reluctant to pick up either Tobin’s letter or the one from Con Keogh, which was now emerging from Thady’s bag.

Thady, noting this, informed him that Cait was back living in Keogh’s hospital and had the child with her. Gary
Óg
she called him. Young Gary.

‘Give me Keogh’s letter.’ Fumbling it open, Adam skimmed and took in its guess that Gary
Óg
could have been sired by one of Cait’s cousins. She might not even be its mother. In her mind though, Con insisted, the child was a claim made flesh: her claim on Adam and his father. To her this would seem perfectly logical. After all, one way or another, the boy – who looked like them both – was of their blood.

‘You’ve driven her mad, Adam,’ Keogh reproached. ‘And your friend the bishop is mad too. He thinks my charity to her is designed to disgrace his flock. The backwoods behaviour of Cait’s relatives was tolerated as long as it remained in the backwoods, but ...’

Adam put the letters in his pocket.

‘I sometimes think of her,’ he told Thady, ‘as a reincarnation of my mother.’